Neville's tail
by wingcat
Summary: Mostly set in the summer after 5th year, not HBP, or DH compliant. After being captured by Death Eaters, Neville, due to a curse gone awry, is transformed into a rare magical creature. He has to learn how to endure, and acquires an unlikely friend.


Neville's Tail

Chapter one

Neville Longbottom was a rather ordinary boy. Even by wizarding standards. Neville was a wizard, which is the general term for a male magic user. He came from a long line of magic users, and almost everyone in his family was one. This made him a 'pure-blood' someone whose family had wielded magic for generations. If a colony of people came to a new land and settled there, their children who were born there would be the first generation, and their children would be second generation and so on. It was the same with wizards. Of course there were 'half-bloods', people who came from magical families, and were magical themselves, but one of their parents were non-magical, or born to non-magical parents; non-magical people were known as 'muggles' and the magical children of two 'muggles' were known as 'muggle-born'.

Neville's family, the Longbottoms, was very pureblooded, and Neville himself was fourteen generations pureblooded, and though some of his ancestors had married halfbloods, the terminology didn't change. Some pureblooded families went back even farther than that, and some refused to marry halfbloods at all, so they were becoming inbred, which among other things, resulted in a higher percentage of squibs. Squibs were people who were born to magical families, but, for whatever reason, they had no magic. It was the opposite of muggle-born, because squibs were muggles born into magical families, and muggle-borns were witches or wizards born into non-magical families.

Neville's family had "thought he was a squib for _ages_" because he had not displayed magic at a young age, the way most young magic users did when they got upset or angry. Neville privately thought that might have been because his Gran, who he had lived with since he was a year old, had gone so far out of her way to make sure he was never upset or angry, that he had been too coddled to even need to do any magic. As a result, his extended family had tried to get him to do magic almost every time they saw him. Always they had failed.

His great uncle Algie had pushed him off Blackpool pier once, but he had been rescued by his Gran. There had been some debate about whether or not this had been magic, because his Gran could not possibly have known where he was, yet she had arrived in time to save Neville. His Gran had not listened to this argument, and had forbidden Algie from being in Neville's presence without someone else there to supervise.

Then, during his tenth birthday party, when uncle Algie had once more told Neville that he must be a squib because he couldn't do any magic, Neville allowed his 'not so great' great uncle to dangle him out of the second story window in an attempt to figure out whether or not he was a squib once more. His great aunt, who was supposed to be watching them to keep them from getting hurt, had just gone for a few seconds to get the meringues. When she came back, Neville was dangling out the window as his uncle held his ankles, but she didn't know that, so (probably assuming Neville had left the room) she offered Algie a meringue. He forgot about Neville, and let go in order to take the offered sweet. With a cry of horror, Neville dropped, down, and down, towards the street. Both his great aunt and great uncle rushed to the window, as did his Gran, who was downstairs, just in time to gape at Neville's plummeting form. Neville saw the pavement rushing towards him, and was so scared that he lost control of the magic he had always known was within him. He bounced! Once, twice, three times, and came to rest safely, nestled in a lilac bush. His family all came running out of the house, asking if he was all right. He was, and then he was overwhelmed as everyone was suddenly hugging him and exclaiming that he had magic, and they knew for sure that he wasn't a squib at last.

The reason Neville lived with his Gran, rather than with his parents is that even though they were still alive, they were certainly not able to take care of a child. When Neville was around one year old, an evil wizard who had been plaguing the wizarding world just disappeared. His followers didn't know where he was, so they decided to get the information from someone who did and bring him back. They thought Frank Longbottom, Neville's father, knew where the 'Dark Lord' had gone, because Frank was a high level ministry auror, someone like a policeman, and so four of them went to his house. Frank was there with his wife, Alice, and their small son, Neville. The Death Eaters (that is the name of the followers of this evil wizard) surprised them, and caught them off guard. Alice only had time to push Neville under the bed, and tell him to hide, and don't let anyone find him, before the Death Eaters entered their house. Neville did his first magic that night. Struck by the urgency in his mother's voice, he curled himself into a ball under the bed and thought very hard about not being seen. He became invisible. The evil wizards (one was a witch) pointed wands at his parents and threatened them with torture if Frank didn't tell them the whereabouts of the Dark Lord. He didn't know.

The Dark Lord had attacked a family of three, the Potters, who had been friends of the Longbottoms, since Frank and James knew each other from work, (they were both aurors) and Neville and Harry had been born only a day apart. (Neville was one day older than Harry.) The evil wizard had a perfectly ordinary name, which he had changed to Voldemort. People were scared to say that name, and called him 'you-know-who' or 'he-who-must-not-be-named'. No one knew why he had attacked the Potters, but he did and killed James and Lily, and tried to kill Harry. The curse backfired and this is where things start to get a little fuzzy. Harry didn't die, but the house was destroyed. There was no sign of Voldemort, but Harry had a curse scar on his forehead. The Potters had been protected by a powerful charm that kept them safe, as long as their whereabouts were kept secret inside a single living soul. However, the person who they trusted with their secret was a Death Eater who betrayed them to Voldemort. They had died, and Voldemort had disappeared. For some reason, Voldemort's followers believed that the Ministry of Magic knew where he had gone. The Death Eaters believed that the Ministry had told the highest ranked aurors, and therefore thought Frank Longbottom knew the location of their Master.

Frank did not know, and the Death Eaters did not believe him. They used a curse, the Cruciatus curse, first on Frank, and then on Alice, to cause them pain. When they applied enough torture, they figured Frank would tell them where the Dark Lord was. When they received no answers, they continued torturing, until both Frank and Alice had been tortured into insanity. Then they left.

Neville, traumatized by his parent's pain filled screams, crawled out from under the bed. He did not understand why his mother didn't seem to see him. Neville was sent to live with his Gran, and thereafter, subconsciously associating magic with fear and pain, suppressed it, along with the memories of the night his parents were attacked.

Neville Longbottom was an ordinary boy, for all that he knew; not even a powerful wizard. But he knew he had magic, which would not fail him in times of need, and he was going to attend Hogwarts, the greatest school of Witchcraft and Wizardry there ever was. It was the school his parents had gone to, and he would make them proud.


End file.
